Cisco Application Policy Infrastructure Controller Privilege Escalation Vulnerability

published 2021-08-25 5 y ago modified 2026-06-17 4 mo ago also EUVD-2021-7045

cvss: 8.8; version 3.1, CNA
cisa kev: Not listed; not in CISA's catalog
epss: 2.0%; EPSS 2.0% chance of exploitation in 30 days, percentile 80%
public exploits: 0; none known

A vulnerability in an API endpoint of Cisco Application Policy Infrastructure Controller (APIC) and Cisco Cloud Application Policy Infrastructure Controller (Cloud APIC) could allow an authenticated, remote attacker to elevate privileges to Administrator on an affected device. This vulnerability is due to an improper policy default setting. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by using a non-privileged credential for Cisco ACI Multi-Site Orchestrator (MSO) to send a specific API request to a managed Cisco APIC or Cloud APIC device. A successful exploit could allow the attacker to obtain Administrator credentials on the affected device.

CISA SSVC

Exploitation: none
Automatable: no
Technical impact: total
Assessed: 2 y ago (2024-11-07)

Exploit prediction

1.97% chance of exploitation in the next 30 days, higher than 80% of all scored CVEs (FIRST EPSS, 2026-11-08).

CVSS scores

assigned by	version	score	vector
CNA	3.1	8.8	CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD	3.1	8.8	CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H
NVD	2.0	9.0	AV:N/AC:L/Au:S/C:C/I:C/A:C

Affected products

Cisco Cisco Application Policy Infrastructure Controller (APIC)

Classification

Weakness

CWE-636 Not Failing Securely
CWE-755 Improper Handling of Exceptional Conditions

References

tools.cisco.com /security/center/content/CiscoSecurityAdvisory/cisco-sa-capic-pesc-pkmGK4J
vendor-advisory

Sources

CVE List CVE-2021-1578
NVD CVE-2021-1578

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Summary